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Monday, October 31, 2011

I'm always on the lookout for bookmobile ephemera and history. I came across both on blogs this weekend, each providing its own interactive experience for viewers who have an interest in bookmobiles and traveling libraries.

The Book Patrol blogged yesterday about a paper bookmobile model that I thought was creative and interesting--something I might forward to my younger nieces and nephew to play around with. The architect behind this clever piece of paper art is Bob Staake.

Of course, I had to try it for myself. It looked easy enough. Just print out the design on Staake's site and start cutting.

Easy, it is not. It's been too many decades since I played with
scissors and paper. After about a minute, I grew tired of the exercise. But I managed to complete the obstacle course of tabs and tires without snipping off anything essential.

The next challenge presented itself in short order: Fold and tuck the tabs and glue the whole thing together. Again, easier said than done.

I didn't have the glue, so my "finished" product looks like something headed for the automobile junk yard.

Or road kill.

And here's what it should look like, according to the image below from Staake's Web site:

Another interesting find over the weekend was from the Exile Bibliophile, reporting on an idle bookmobile that functions as a model, of sorts, for traveling library history. It's an old rail car that transported books to readers in Montana timber camps in the early 20th century. Read about this fascinating historical exhibit, its current restoration status, and where to visit. From the photos, it appears visitors can interact with this railway bookmobile, too, by simply walking into the rail car and stepping back in time. You won't need to cut, fold, tuck, or glue anything.

Friday, October 21, 2011

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting, via email, Laurel Davis, the Legal Information Librarian, Lecturer in Law, and Curator of Special Collections for the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room in the Boston College Law
Library. Somewhere in all that she also finds time to write the Rare Book Room's blog.

I was delighted to have her use it for The Golden Age of Legal Publishing in Massachusetts. I was actually in Massachusetts earlier this month, but on the western side of the state and just didn't have the time to see the exhibit in person. But there is the digital counterpart for those of us who can't travel to see this interesting collection of early Massachusetts law books.

During our correspondence, I indicated I might have more examples of related ephemera and set about finding for her any additional Little, Brown & Company or other Massachusetts law book publishers that might be in my collection. I had no luck, though I knew there was something.

I took another look recently and found what I was looking for--an even earlier billhead that had been archived in its original folded manner (that's how I missed the content before), as it had been mailed that way and contained the address of the recipient, a postage stamp, and evidence of the sender's wax seal.

I thought I would include it here as a follow-up to the previous Little, Brown & Company post, with some added history for the customer on the billhead, and also alert readers to the Boston College Law Library exhibit. It's a good one.

This is the only example I know of in my collection of a billhead or other business transaction paper being turned into its own mailer.

This billhead appears to be dated 1856, which precedes my other Little, Brown & Company billhead by nearly forty years. The three principals in the company include Charles C. Little, whose name was absent on the 1892 billhead. The other partners' names, Brown and Flagg, are also on the 1892 billhead, but those names belong to their sons who succeeded them in the business.

Also of interest with this billhead is the customer, Caleb Birchall of Springfield, Illinois. I thought of a lawyer in Springfield who might have had need for some law books from Little, Brown and Company. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

Caleb Birchall was a printer and bookbinder who moved to Springfield from Philadelphia in 1834 and became a respected businessman in the community. In 1848, he either entered into a new business, or expanded on his existing business. Surviving business documents indicate that 1848 was the year he partnered with druggist Thomas Jefferson Vance Owen to operate what became a very successful business selling a variety of items in addition to drugs and patent medicines of the day. They also printed and distributed a farmer's almanac, so it appears that Birchall didn't relinquish all of his printing business.

That Birchall was ordering books form a Boston law book publisher in the 1856 would indicate he engaged in bookselling also at the time of this billhead. Lincoln was known to have been a customer of the firm, having bought ledgers from them. Might he have also acquired a few law books as well from Birchall?

There is more documentation about Birchall's having been a bookseller in Springfield during the time Lincoln lived there. Allen Guelzo's Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President and The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume I. both refer to Birchall's bookstore in Springfield. Guelzo's reference includes a passage about the bookstore having operated a circulating library where one could find books by Scott, Cooper, Irving, and others. Coincidentally, the billhead to Birchall includes a note advising him that his request for books by Cooper and Irving could best be handled by a New York publisher.

However, Little, Brown & Company was able to furnish the following books, the variety of which belies somewhat the "Law Booksellers & Publishers" that appears on their correspondence: Locke's Human Understanding, Bancroft (US History?), British Poets, and English Law and Equal Rights.

So Birchall was stocking literature, philosophy, and history for Springfield readers as well as law books for Springfield lawyers. Makes you wonder if Lincoln ever strolled into the shop and bought a law book or two that just might have come from Little, Brown & Company. Now that would be a billhead to have and write about!